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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24700450">Getting back to Normal</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galexi/pseuds/Galexi'>Galexi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Torchwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, Post-Episode: s01e04 Cyberwoman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:40:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,978</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24700450</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galexi/pseuds/Galexi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto Jones has been suspended for four weeks. If he is to return to Torchwood Three, the team must accept his betrayal and move on. It’s Jack’s duty to ensure that each member of his team is willing to let the youngest team member return. After all, when you face death on a weekly basis - often before your morning coffee - trust is essential. But this is Torchwood, and Weevils have a habit of getting in the way of ordinary conversations.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gwen Cooper &amp; Jack Harkness, Jack Harkness &amp; Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness &amp; Owen Harper, Jack Harkness &amp; Team Torchwood, Jack Harkness &amp; Toshiko Sato</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Right then kids,” Jack said with a smile far too wide for the tiredness he was feeling after the day they’d had, “let’s get this beauty on ice and the other down to the cells then call it a night."</p><p>Owen’s impressive eye roll would have rivalled Ianto’s if the Welshman had been here.</p><p>“Or morning if you’re being picky,” Jack added, sharing a grin with Toshiko.</p><p>With a grunt of effort, Jack and Owen lifted the corpse of a Weevil from the boot, leaving Tosh to grab the other Weevil which was starting to regain conciseness. Jack always tried to keep the Weevils alive if he could. He hadn’t had a choice with this one.</p><p>Gwen had gone home hours before the late-night call came through - three Weevils spotted at the Old Cardiff Docks. Tosh should have already gone home too, but she had been working on the latest updates to Rift Predicter Program and had once again lost track of time. Jack had been cajoling her to leave for well over an hour as he watched over Owen who was hunched over his desk completing paperwork. Jack had forced him to stay late as a punishment for not turning up for work all week until at least half eleven.</p><p>The Rift had been relatively quiet, but that hadn’t been the point. With one team member down - even if Ianto hadn’t been in the field that often – there had been a significant strain on the rest of them. Without him for the last four weeks, the Hub became increasingly messier, hours became longer with time spent clearing up fieldwork and paperwork, and everyone’s mood dipped without the Welshman providing a constant stream of coffee, snacks, and takeaways. When Owen had finally shown his face in the morning, the team's mood dipped even further as the medic arrived with his usual grumpiness and complains of a hangover. Without Ianto to cover for him since his suspension, Owen had fallen far below acceptable standards with his filing.</p><p>Owen had been pleased to escape the Hub, hoping Jack would forget his promise to force him to work until he’d completed the backlog. Whilst the Weevil hunt had indeed distracted him, they had all returned exhausted. The three Weevils had quickly become four, then five, then seven. The chase had taken nearly two hours. Luckily, most had seen sense and returned to the sewers once they’d heard the crack of Jack’s Webley. The three that remained - either too stupid or too vicious to simply hide - were eventually cornered an abandoned warehouse. The first two were soon sedated, but the fourth had been unreasonably suspicious – if a Weevil could ever be considered reasonable.</p><p>Jack was starting to wonder if something was going on with them. For the last few months, Weevil sightings seemed to be fluctuating and their aggression towards humans was becoming more common. Perhaps it was some type of delayed reaction to the disturbance caused by the opening of the Void at Canary Wharf. Jack had always wondered if they were time-sensitive; they certainly had become agitated by the Ghost Shifts and become more violent during those few minutes when the Void was opened. Whatever it was, it certainly hadn’t helped that this particular Weevil seemed to have some type of reaction to the spray, and that reaction wasn’t making it docile or fall asleep. Instead, it had made it even angrier, lashing out at Jack whenever he sprayed it. Its deceptively sharp claws were aiming for his jugular. It managed to tear at his face before he could shove it away.</p><p>Sadly for Owen, who had come up from the side with a needle of full-strength sedative, Jack’s shove sent the Weevil straight into him. Before either of the men had time to react, Owen and the Weevil went crashing to the floor. The force of the impact knocked the sedative from Owen’s hands and sent it skittering away from him across the floor. Toshiko rushed forward to help, but the enraged Weevil spotted her quickly and lashed out at her. In her haste to get clear of the claws, she stumbled backwards and tripped over a nearby stack of wooden pallets. Owen started to sit up and the Weevil turned back to him, lunging towards him, and returned to trying to rip his throat out. With Tosh still down and Owen pinned down with no hope of reaching his gun, Jack had been forced to take out his own Webley and empty the full round into the side of the Weevil’s neck. His years of experience using the same gun meant he was confident that Owen wouldn’t be harmed. Toshiko had followed the Captain’s lead seconds later and proceeded to discharge her clip into the Weevil’s shoulder.</p><p>In the relative silence after the scuffle, all that could be heard was the heavy breathing of the three operatives and the distant traffic from the main road as the people of Cardiff remained in blissful ignorance of the true nature of their city. However, this silence was soon broken by a muffled ‘fuck’ from the direction of the Weevil which had slumped over Owen’s body. Jack had started to laugh at that, still high on adrenalin and the knowledge his team were safe. He called out to Tosh to double-check she hadn’t been too badly harmed as he walked over to her. He helped her up, sharing a smile with the technician as they listened to the rather colourful language coming from Owen as he failed to move the dead weight that was still pinning him to the ground. Together, Jack and Tosh freed him. The only thanks they were given was another string of curses.</p><p>After a curtesy glance and some prodding, Owen had declared that the only thing wrong with them was that they were complete and utter wankers. In truth, despite the perilous fight, the only injuries they had sustained was a few scrapes and bruises as well as Jack’s healing lip, which now looked like it had been split rather than torn by the Weevil’s claws. They had all emerged relatively unscathed. Well, all except for the Weevil – that was thoroughly dead.</p><p>With a grunt of effort, Jack and Owen heaved the Weevil from the boot of the car. Tosh locked up the SUV and shut the garage entrance to the hub behind them before dragging the remaining conscious Weevil to the cells. The two men went to the Loading Bay, carrying the Weevil between them until they came to an empty draw which could be sent either the Morgue, Cold Storage, or the Medical Bay. One day they were going to have to find a way to fit a gurney into the SUV; it seemed to Jack that he’d spent most of his life dragging dead bodies through the Hub, unable to find a trolley to carry them. Then again, he’d have to adapt it with alien technology – there were far too many steps to navigate in their base. Top secret and super cool looking, but highly impractical really.</p><p>“Wait a min,” Owen said before Jack could press the button to send it to Cold Storage to be incinerated later. He waved a hand at the buttons as he leant back against the draws, still slightly out of breath. “Send it to Autopsy. I wanna do a necropsy.”</p><p>“Really?” Jack laughed. “I’m pretty sure even Janet could give you a cause of death.”</p><p>“No shit. But we’ve still got no idea what’s happening with the Weevils. They’re getting more and more aggressive recently, and even more are coming up from the sewers, even in the daylight. What was it, eleven seen this week, plus today’s lot, and sixteen the week before?”</p><p>Jack nodded. It seemed he wasn’t the only one to notice the strange behaviour of the Weevils.</p><p>“And it’s not like we end up with many dead ones without too much damage. It’d be a wasted opportunity to not to open it up,” Owen continued.</p><p>“Can’t it wait ‘til tomorrow?” he sighed. Owen had a point - Weevils were hard to catch and even harder to kill. But Jack was exhausted. He still wanted to clean up a bit, or at least make Ianto’s area and the kitchenette presentable before he shut down the Hub for the night. Tomorrow was likely to be a difficult day and he would prefer it if he’d managed to sleep a bit before facing Ianto again.</p><p>“I’d rather get it done while it’s fresh. It might be that there’s something fast-acting, like a virus or something, or a biological prosses that is affected by the death of the host. But as the corpse is mostly intact with no damage to the brain, I might find something.”</p><p>“You think you will?”</p><p>“I don’t know – that’s the problem.”</p><p>“Fine, it’s probably a good idea.”</p><p>Owen preened at the praise. “Obviously. I always have them.”</p><p>“You better give Tosh a check over first,” Jack said with a raised voice as they walked back into the main area of the Hub. He’d just noticed the tell-tale tap of keys coming from Tosh’s desk. She’d obviously snuck back up to her workstation to check on her program after she’d taken the last Weevil to the cells despite Jack’s insistence that she was to go straight home.</p><p>“Huh?” Owen looked confused for a moment before he noticed the mischievous glint in Jack’s eyes. The noise from Toshiko’s station suddenly stopped.</p><p>“Well, I assume the only reason the lovely Toshiko Sato is waiting so patiently at her desk is because she needs you to make sure she’s okay after that rather impressive collision in the warehouse. After all, I know she wouldn’t be sneaking back to her computer when she should be at home by now.”</p><p>“I’m fine – just a few bruises on my legs and arm, I think,” Tosh said sheepishly, standing up from her chair and turning to face them. “I took a splinter out from my hand earlier and used the antiseptic wipes on the way back.”</p><p>Owen ushered Tosh down the stairs. “Come ‘ere then.”</p><p>“I’m fine Owen. Really, it’s nothing,” she protested as he glanced at Jack. He just stepped back and smiled sweetly back at her as he made a wide gesture with his arm to allow her to pass in front of him and down the stairs.</p><p>“Who’s the Doctor here?” Owen muttered and pulled her further into the room for better light.</p><p>Tosh said something under her breath about the fact that she was more than capable at playing Doctor when she covered for him at UNIT, but Owen was too absorbed in his patient to pay any attention to Tosh’s comment. Owen might come across as a bit gruff, but he was a bloody good Doctor and cared deeply about anyone under his care.</p><p>“Yeah, you’re fine,” he concluded after a few minutes of gentle prodding and softly spoken questions.</p><p>“Nothing that a good night’s sleep and a lazy morning won’t fix, I’m sure.” Jack smiled at the pair of them from where he watched with his foot propped up on the railings above them.</p><p>Jack!” Tosh exclaimed, obviously still thinking of the program running on her computer. However, her indignant expression was spoiled by the muffled yawn that she tried to hide by turning her into her shoulder.</p><p>“Yeah, go home and get some rest,” Owen said with a smile. He handed her a couple of paracetamol tablets. “Take these too. And stop coming in so early – you make the rest of us look bad.”</p><p>Owen nudged her playfully towards the stairs, making sure to avoid the bruise on her arm that was bound to develop in the next few hours. Tosh called out his name, aiming for an indignant tone but she was laughing now.</p><p>“Come on Tosh, go and grab your stuff and I’ll take you home. Owen’s right – you’ve been working far too hard recently. You’re no good to us if you’re exhausted.” Jack gently took her arm and guided her over to her desk. “Take the morning off. I’m sure we’ll survive without you until lunch, especially if you bring pastries with you. We’ve all missed our coffee breaks recently.”</p><p>Reluctantly, Tosh agreed to let Jack help her pack up whist she fiddled with her computer, making sure it would continue running whilst she was away. Jack, however, did concede to let her take home some of the calculations she had been working on to improve the program to work on later if she felt like it. He knew she would, but hopefully by allowing her to take her one of her notebooks she’d be more likely to stay at home, rather than coming back to the Hub as soon as she woke up. She was in serious need of a rest. She hid a few more yawns as they walked down to the underground car park. Unlike Gwen or Owen, it was unusual to see the reserved technician show her fatigue. In fact, Jack couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her yawn.</p><p>It was no wonder she was exhausted, though. Without Ianto, Tosh had taken up most of his duties around the Hub. She helped Jack with the basic maintenance, made coffee, and ran to and from the archive, collecting and depositing everything that came through the Rift. It made sense for her to gather and store items from the archive as other than Jack she had the most experience. Before Ianto had joined the Cardiff branch, it had been Suzie and Toshiko who had free range of the archives. Suzie was always raiding them for new technology to use in the quiet moments, whist Tosh had started working on a way to digitally categorise everything that came through the Rift. Owen hadn’t been interested in them, complaining it took too long to find anything and most of what he did find was broken or mislabelled. Instead, he relied on Suzie, and occasionally Jack, to bring him items he might find interesting.</p><p>Gwen had also been working overtime, cleaning up, going out for coffee from Urban Roast (the only decent coffee shop within walking distance), manning the Tourist Office in her breaks, and feeding the residents, including the team. It seemed to Jack that during Ianto’s absence, both Gwen and Tosh had been reluctant to leave at night, always finding another excuse to stay behind. Owen, on the other hand, had been the same grumpy bastard as usual. Jack had tried to get him involved with cleaning and the basic upkeep of his area, after all before Ianto had started it had been his responsibility, but he had often left it for one of the girls to do for him. When Jack had confronted him about his behaviour, Owen had loudly complained that it wasn’t his fault that Ianto wasn’t here. It was that conversation a couple of days earlier that had influenced Jack’s decision to keep him behind tonight.</p><p>But Tosh had been working more than her other teammates and was almost certainly working harder and longer hours than Jack himself. Not only was Tosh taking on extra jobs, but she'd also flung herself into her own work in a way he hadn’t seen since the months after she first joined Torchwood. Every waking hour and several of those that weren’t, Tosh could be found hunched over her computer or notebooks, searching for a way to improve her Rift Monitors. The only thing she’d been avoiding was the digital archive project that she and Ianto had been working on together.</p><p>On the way to Toshiko’s flat, they ended up talking about Ianto’s return tomorrow. Jack had been listing his favourite pastries, throwing in a couple of ones that hadn’t even been invented yet or were from other planets just to make Tosh giggle, and Tosh adding her own opinions of the ones she knew. They debated what the rest of the team would like, before coming to Ianto. It was a slightly sombre conversation after that as they both realised that they had no idea what his would be, despite Ianto often being the one to provide their favourite snacks throughout the day without being prompted. Despite the long hours the archivist/butler worked, neither of them knew too much about him.</p><p>A week ago, he’d made an effort to try to talk to the team individually about Ianto returning in order to get an idea of how they were all feeling before the team meeting on Friday. Ianto’s suspension had been a team decision, with a compulsory four-week suspension period before a review. The team meeting had gone surprisingly well, with the team agreeing that Ianto could return to work the following Monday. Ianto had already told Jack and Owen that he wanted to return, despite being given multiple options. Ianto had been visibly shocked that most of Jack’s options didn’t involve retcon. Jack had offered everything from working at Torchwood Two in Glasgow, to returning to a civilian life with the option to be a freelancer in times of crisis. But Ianto had been adamant to return to Torchwood Three and his usual duties. Owen had deemed him medically fit to return to work, and Jack had made the final decision. The paperwork for the end of his suspension was sitting on his desk to be completed tomorrow.</p><p>Like Gwen, Tosh had been nervous about Ianto’s return, not because of what he’d done, but because she was still feeling guilty for her part in the lead up to the incident. When Ianto had first joined, Tosh struggled to accept his presence. After the fall of Canary Wharf, some of the UNIT officials had been breathing down their necks and threatening to take over. Jack had happily let them take over London. After all, they were a team of four that dealt with the Cardiff Rift, they couldn’t possibly deal with aliens that were obsessed with the capital of England for some unknown reason.</p><p>Although Toshiko had worked with UNIT before, a year earlier she’d impersonated a medical doctor much to Jack's amusement, their accusations of Torchwood's incompetence had left her fearing that they would take her back to prison if they deemed Jack to be incapable as her jailer. She’d later confided in him that Ianto's stiff upper lip and liking for rules had reminded her of the UNIT men she would occasionally meet in rare instances where she was permitted to leave her cell for questioning. Subsequently, she had withdrawn herself in the months after Ianto's recruitment and by the time she felt more confident in her place in the team Ianto had effectively hidden himself into the background. Tosh had simply accepted his place within the team. It hadn't crossed Tosh's mind until too late that Ianto might have also been hiding whilst dealing with the effects of Torchwood One's demise.</p><p>Jack, too, was nervous for Ianto's return. He was the boss and thus responsible for his team. He had failed the whole of Torchwood that day, not just Ianto. He had failed to deal with the consequences of the destruction of Torchwood One, failed to look out for the survivors, failed to keep the Hub secure, failed to ensure Ianto was okay. It had been his job, he had been promoted to Director of Torchwood, he was Torchwood now, and he had failed. Ianto may have hidden everything, but Jack had never taken the time to look. It wasn't an excuse he could use. His hatred of Torchwood One and what they had done that day had blinded him, and Ianto and his girlfriend had paid the price for it.</p><p>Jack may have loved the title of 'Captain', but he knew he wasn't really suited to leadership. The same went for the hero character he tried to play up to for the others. It was just another role for him to play; he'd been playing them since childhood. But it seemed despite all the practise he'd had he wasn't getting any better at this role.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He continued to mull these thoughts over on the silent drive back to the Hub after he had dropped Tosh off. He parked up and wandered back up to the main Hub. It seemed Owen had made the most of having the place to himself. He’d turned the night lights on, leaving only the Medical Bay in bright light, and was blasting a song with a heavy base from his computer that was rattling the pens on his desk. Jack wasn’t too keen on the Medic’s music taste at the best of times, but at half two in the morning when he hadn’t slept for over thirty-three hours, it was intolerable.</p><p>“Owen!” he yelled. He got no response. He called out several more times as he made his way over, but either he couldn’t be heard over the music or Owen was ignoring him. Flipping open his wrist strap, Jack cut the music.</p><p>“Oi, I was listening to that!” Owen called out indignantly.</p><p>“Yeah, well, this is my Hub and you're on my time now.” Jack leant against the railing at the top of the bay as he watched Owen work. “I was looking forward to a quiet evening in and you're disturbing my plans.”</p><p>“Yeah, right Harkness. Didn't think you had a quiet evening in unless you couldn't find a warm body beforehand. It's not that late ya know. Still, plenty of chicks and dicks out there, or have you gone through all of Cardiff now?”</p><p>“You'd be the expert, I suppose,” Jack bantered back good naturally, deciding to ignore Owen's not so subtle probing. At one point, Suzie and Owen had had a bet going, not that he let them know that he knew about it. He’d enjoyed trying to wind them both up on quiet days and the drinks they would try to buy him after work to loosen his tongue were a bonus. He didn't tend to accept them, passing them off to the others, but he enjoyed spending time with the team as they relaxed after a stressful day, or more often than not, several days.</p><p>“Oh, fuck off, will ya. And put my music back on whilst you're at it.”</p><p>“No chance. My Hub, my rules.” But he did relent and put on some slow jazz from the ’50s instead.</p><p>“Ugh, just 'cos you dress from the past doesn't mean you have to inflict your old man music on me too,” Owen wined. Jack knew it was just a façade. He’d heard similar music coming from the Medical Bay in the early weeks of Owen's employment. He assumed that it had been something from before his life with Torchwood, perhaps something he had listened to with Katie. He couldn’t imagine it was something from his childhood. Tosh sometimes played similar music late at night when she was working alone. Jack wondered if they would ever know how similar they were.</p><p>“Well, finish up quickly and bugger off home. I ain't encouraging you to stay any longer than you have to. Some of us want to get to bed.”</p><p>“Lightweight,” Owen scoffed as he turned away from the Weevil corpse to put the samples he had collected through one of the machines for analysis. “Anyway, you're always saying I should work more hours. We had that conversation earlier.”</p><p>“I meant you should actually turn up for work on time once in a while, not still be hanging around bugging me at stupid o’clock in the morning.”</p><p>“You’re the one that's bugging me. I didn’t ask you to turn off my music and come talk to me when I’m trying to work.”</p><p>“On that subject, did you finish that pile of paperwork?”</p><p>“Mostly,” he mumbled, keeping his back to Jack as he took a suspiciously close look at the machine.</p><p>Jack sighed. There were more important things for Owen to do than the paperwork tonight. “Okay, fine. Make sure it’s done by the time you leave tomorrow.”</p><p>“Yeah well, Fancy Pants will be back tomorrow. He's always rewriting it so why should I bother doing it in the first place?”</p><p>“Owen,” Jack warned. Despite Jack’s insistence to talk to everyone individually before Ianto’s return, Owen had been dodging the issue every time Jack raised it. All he’d been willing to talk about was Ianto’s physical and supposed mental state, remaining objective at all time. Whist it was helpful to have a professional opinion, it left Jack no wiser to Owen’s personal feelings. The two men had had a turbulent relationship even before the Cyberman that had been Lisa Hallett had been discovered.</p><p>“What?” Owen finally turned from the monitors where he was running tests on the Weevil's blood to look up at him.</p><p>Jack ignored his question and stared down at him for a few moments in silence as the jazz music reached its crescendo before the next track started. Owen shrugged and turned back to the Weevil.</p><p>“You sure Ianto’s going to be alright coming back to work here?” Jack finally asked.</p><p>“It’s his choice and he’s rather insistent that he wants to. God knows why he wants to come back to this hell hole though.”</p><p>Jack hummed in agreement. He wasn't too sure why Ianto would want to return to the place where in his mind his colleagues had murdered his girlfriend after his boss tried to get him to murder her first. Ianto’s life as he knew it had been destroyed along with the Torchwood Tower. He didn't seem that close to any of his family, hadn't requested time off to see them whilst he had worked here or even spoken about them before. It seemed Torchwood was his life now, much the same as his own, Jack supposed. But Ianto was young and talented enough not be tied to Torchwood for life. He had so much more he could offer, but Torchwood had decreed differently. Or perhaps that was the reason he was coming back. He had nowhere else to go. He knew little else other than the Torchwood lifestyle having been recruited at twenty-one, practically straight after Uni. Ianto probably also had a strong sense of duty, at least that's what it seemed, but who knew anymore? Maybe he felt the need to make up for his actions that had led to the death of two civilians. Maybe it was just guilt, and Jack knew a lot about that.</p><p>“Yeah,” Jack finally sighed. “You’re right. Maybe we shouldn’t be letting him come back here.”</p><p>“What?” Owen’s head jerked up in surprise. He turned to look over his shoulder, his mouth gaped open in shock. “I didn’t say that!"</p><p>“Oh, come on Owen, even you know Ianto could do so much better than this - making coffee, cleaning up after us. He’s a smart man, and still young. He could go and do anything with his life. He shouldn’t be stuck here.” <em>‘Not when he’s got the chance to get out before Torchwood kills him,’</em> went unsaid, but nevertheless still hung unspoken between them. For that was what Torchwood was: a one-way ticket for the broken outcasts of society to an early grave. Or. More precisely, an eternity in a metal coffin stacked in an ever-growing Mortuary.</p><p>“And how on earth are you planning to get him to agree to that?”</p><p>“Dunno,” Jack shrugged. “Retcon would probably be kindest – he’s been through so much already. He shouldn’t have to remember all that shit. Fuck, I wish I didn’t have to remember that carnage, and I didn’t even join Suzie and Tosh there until most of the clean-up had been done.”</p><p>“So, basically, you want to take away the only choice that bloke seems to have made for himself since that shit show went down?” Owen scoffed and waved a dismissive gesture which sent drops of blood flying from his gloved hand to splatter on the white tiles.</p><p>The blood drained from Jack’s face as he realised what he had been contemplating. “He was right. I’m an absolutely shit boss,” he murmured under his breath.</p><p>“Look, Jack,” Owen said as he spun on his stool to face him, “life goes on – it always does. He’ll grieve and rage and cry. After all, he’s managed to suppress the most of it for five months by looking after his girlfriend so it’s probably doing him some good to finally let go. Then he’ll pick himself up and carry on like nothing ever happened. Coming back to work will help with that. He needs life to go back to normal. Well, not normal - you always remember something like that, but you move on. Sure, life ‘ll never be the same and you’ll have changed, but you get used to it eventually.”</p><p>“When did you get so wise, Doctor Harper?” Jack gave a dry chuckle, knowing they were heading into dangerous territory. It had been two years since his Fiancée, Katie, had passed, but Jack knew how deeply affected he was by her death, despite his pretence. He was glad he’d gotten a rare glimpse inside Owen’s mind. He knew Owen was right, though. There was nothing more he could do for Owen other than pick up the shattered pieces of his life and keep them safe until he was ready to put them back together again. He hoped he’d be staying on Earth long enough to see the man he knew he could become. If he could do it for Owen, and for Tosh, he could do the same for his youngest employee. After all, he had enough time and enough practise at waiting.</p><p>Jack was so caught up in his own thoughts that he almost didn’t hear Owen mumble around the pencil in his mouth as he studied his clipboard. “It was you that taught me that.”</p><p>With Owen’s back to him, Jack allowed himself to smile – the first genuine smile for a long time. Owen would probably shoot him dead if he let on that he’d heard that confession, so he let it go and allowed himself to have a quiet moment of pride for the man Owen was becoming.</p><p>“Are you going to be alright with Ianto coming back?” Jack asked, changing the subject. “I know you said he needs to come back, but I meant what I said on Friday– I can still sort out another arrangement if it’s not going to work. Send him up to Archie in Torchwood two to help with the archiving or something.”</p><p>That had been another condition of Ianto’s suspension. If any one of the team had rejected Ianto’s return, Jack would find a way around it until he could be certain that the rest of the team wouldn’t be negatively impacted by his return. As much as he owed Ianto, he still had an obligation to the rest of them.</p><p>“Yeah,” Owen said as he snapped off his gloves, obviously finished with the Weevil for now, and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not going to pretend that I’m still not bloody angry at him for what he did. He could have killed us all, nearly did with his stupidity. But I get it, I suppose. I know why he did it, even if he should have come to his senses when that thing went on a rampage.”</p><p>Jack hummed, hoping to hide his surprise at Owen’s response. Not that he’d expected him to reject Ianto, rather, Jack hadn’t expected Owen to accept him back so calmly.</p><p>Jack’s shock, however, didn’t go unnoticed by Owen. “What?”</p><p>“Nothing. Just wasn’t expecting…” He shook his head, unable to find the words to continue.</p><p>“Didn’t think that Doctor Harper was capable of thinking of others?” he mocked.</p><p>“Something like that,” Jack laughed. “You’re not exactly known for it – quite the opposite, I’d say.”</p><p>“Well, you’ve obviously not been talking to the right people, then,” he leered over his shoulder before turning back to his work. “Just don’t be expecting me to go ‘round treating him any differently just ‘cos that could have been me.”</p><p>Jack stopped laughing abruptly. “Sorry?”</p><p>“You heard me the first time, Harkness,” Owen muttered as he scrawled in his notebook.</p><p>Jack slowly walked down the stairs, but Owen continued to ignore him. He kept his head down, muttering calculations under his breath.</p><p>“What do you mean?” Jack asked softly as he placed a hand on Owen’s shoulder.</p><p>“Fuck off. I’m working,” Owen growled as he shrugged Jack's hand off him, but there was no menace to his voice.</p><p>“Okay, okay.” Jack raised his hands in surrender and backed away to lean against the wall to wait to see if Owen would continue. The minutes ticked by. He slouched against the wall, trying to muffle the yawns that he didn't manage to suppress. Owen hadn't thrown him out of the room, so Jack knew it was just a matter of waiting until Owen would continue.</p><p>Finally, just as Jack was thinking that Owen had forgotten he was there, Owen gave a deep sigh and put his pencil down.</p><p>“I get it - what Ianto did I mean. And if that had been me and Katie, I'd probably have made the same choice. I couldn't do it, kill my fiancée I mean, and he couldn't kill his girlfriend. It wouldn't matter that it wasn't her anymore because it still looked like her and sounded like her. Katie did too.”</p><p>Jack sighed sadly and moved back towards him. “You know that wasn’t the same. Katie wasn’t dangerous, she never was, but- “</p><p>“No, it wasn’t, but it bloody well might have been!” Owen exploded, turning and shoving Jack in the chest. He stumbled backwards and caught himself on the autopsy table, just missing the Weevil. Jack watched him warily, but after the short outburst, Owen seemed to have calmed. “Look, I did everything I possibly could for her. More scans, more tests, repeats of the same things over and over and over again. I'm a Doctor for fuck's sake; I knew there had to be something, even if the science wasn't advanced enough for me to find it. Imagine what I would have done if I had known about this place?” Owen threw his arms wide and gestured around the Medical Bay. “All this knowledge, all this advanced equipment – something must have been able to save her in this Batcave, otherwise what’s the point of it all. If I’d have known about Torchwood, about the extent of the technology stashed away in here, I’d have done anything to get in here, just to make her well again.</p><p>Owen scrubbed a hand over his face, but Jack still saw the wetness on his face he was trying to hide.</p><p>Owen sank down onto his stall again and said in a quieter voice, “that’s all Ianto did. Only he had access to better equipment than I did.”</p><p>“Shit.” There was nothing else he could say. He’d just never thought of it like that.</p><p>“Yeah.” Owen picked up the pencil and started chewing on it again as he turned back to his work. “How far would you go, Jack? How far would you go to save someone you love? Because I’d bring Katie back permanently if I could. But that’s a step too far, even for Torchwood.”</p><p>“I suppose you’re right.”</p><p>“Obviously,” he drawled. The monitor pinged and Owen scooted over to read the results. Jack came over to watch over Owen’s shoulder as he started to scribble strings of numbers on his clipboard.</p><p>“So, you need to get anything else of that chest of yours, or are you gonna keep standing there brooding all night, cos you’re in my light?”</p><p>“Why? Got any other good advice, Doctor Harper?” Jack asked, reaching for the finished sample sheet in the printer tray, but Owen swatted his hands away and snatched it up.</p><p>“Yeah, I do, as a matter of fact.”</p><p>“Oh? Do tell.”</p><p>“Certain Captains should piss off and leave their staff alone to do their jobs if they want to keep their fingers attached to their hand.”</p><p>“Huh, surprisingly good advice from someone who doesn’t seem to be able to tell the time when it’s time to come into work,” he clapped him on the shoulder before dancing away from the scalpel Owen waved menacingly in his direction. “Alright, alright! I’m going!”</p><p>Jack took pity on him and decided to go up to the kitchen to tidy up a bit whilst he waited for Owen to finish up. He had almost reached the top of the stairs a thought popped into his head. It was something he should have checked earlier, but somehow the thought had never crossed his mind before tonight.</p><p>“You do know that there was nothing we could have done for Katie, don’t you Owen?” he asked softly. “If we had even the slightest chance of saving her, we would have tried.”</p><p>Jack watched as Owen’s back shuddered as he took a deep breath before slowly letting it out.</p><p>“I know,” he replied quietly. He picked up the pencil he had dropped on his desk when Jack had spoken and started to write again.</p><p>Jack waited to see if Owen would speak again, but it seemed that Owen had said all he was going to. Satisfied with the answer, Jack climbed the last two steps and left Owen alone with his thoughts. He was a privet person and Jack had no intention of prying any further. He wandered out into the main Hub, changing the music with his wriststrap to one of Owen's quieter albums, leaving the volume on low when he heard Owen call his name.</p><p>Jack turned and poked his head back around the archway to see Owen looking up at him as he fidgeted in an uncharacteristic way.</p><p>“All those tests I did, on Katie I mean, all those scans I made her have until they showed something – would she have lived longer if I’d have just let it be and accepted their original diagnosis. They never would have operated if I hadn’t demanded another scan. She died, along with five others, because of me.”</p><p>“They didn’t. It wasn’t your fault,” Jack said coming back down the stairs. “Toshiko’s program picked the scan results within fifteen minutes of them being uploaded and we rang the hospital straight away. We tried to warn the doctors not to operate, or at least wait twenty minutes ‘til we got there, but they ignored us. By the time I got there, it was too late. There was nothing else we could have done.”</p><p>Owen nodded his head but wouldn’t meet Jack’s eyes. “But the scans-”</p><p>“Only showed what was already happening. Katie was deteriorating rapidly, wasn’t she?”</p><p>Owen nodded again.</p><p>“She wouldn’t have lived much longer without the operation. Four hours, five at most before she the Asteroidea grew too large. But she would have been in a lot of pain as it matured. She was under anastatic when the gas was released. It was peaceful. She didn’t feel any pain.”</p><p>Owen was silent as he processed what Jack had said. Jack started mentally kicking himself as he realised something else that he should have thought of years ago. He pushed down the frustration he felt, knowing Ianto was one in a long list of failures of him looking after his team. He was the captain, he was in charge of Torchwood, and he was solely responsible for the wellbeing of four other people. It was one thing keeping them alive in the field, quite another taking care of them after the fight was over. He didn’t have the luxury the Doctor had of leaving when the action was over. He had to stay behind and clear up the mess he’d made, however inadvertently.</p><p>“Did you read the report Suzie wrote afterwards?” he asked, already knowing, and dreading the answer.</p><p>“No,” Owen confirmed. “Never could face it.”</p><p>And why would someone want to read the files that contained the post-mortem of the person they loved, killed by an alien parasite? He knew Owen had read the other files on the Asteroidea. A year or so ago, Owen had completed a necropsy on a Weevil that had died after a small colony of them had been poisoned by illegal chemicals being dumped in the city’s sewers and found a dead Asteroidea that had been incubating in the Weevil. But no other file other than Katie’s focused on the Asteroidean incubation period inside a human brain. Jack knew that they were always fatal for humans, but the effects they had on other species were vastly different from those of a human. Owen hadn’t really known that there had been nothing they could have done for Katie, not officially. Jack had signed off the file, never considering that Owen would never open it.</p><p>“I’ve never seen a case of an Asteroidea surviving to puberty in a human brain. I’ve only ever seen them found during a post-mortem when they’re barely more than a few cells wide. They’re non-operable due to the microscopic tendrils they slowly grow during the first two-year incubation period and are always fatal to humans. The tendrils are what kills the human host as they disrupt brain function. But Katie fought all the usual symptoms of the parasite. She wasn't in pain, she wasn't vomiting, she wasn't having seizures. She didn’t even start to have memory issues until the last three months. But they develop quickly over the course of twenty hours when they reach puberty. Katie was about three hours into the process when the scan was taken. But despite the development of the creature by the time of the operation, she never suffered a brain haemorrhage or bleeding from the eyes and nose. She fought for her life and her body, Owen, and she didn't even know she was doing it. She was extremely strong.”</p><p>“Yeah, she was,” Owen said with a small smile.</p><p>“All we could have done was sedate her and help her pass peacefully before the Asteroidea grew too large for her body to cope. I’d have dealt with the Asteroidea once she had gone.”</p><p>“She never stood a chance.”</p><p>“I know,” Jack said softly. “But she wasn’t in pain and she wasn’t scared. She had hope - and sometimes that’s all we can ask for.”</p><p>Owen nodded and turned back to his work. Jack stood and watched above him for a few more minutes but Owen seemed to be engrossed in his work once more, so he left him to it.</p><p>Much later, Jack sat at his desk, having cleaned the kitchen and Ianto’s desk to the best of his ability, completing the paperwork for the Weevils now in the cells as well as the one in Owen’s bay. Owen had changed the music he was listening to a while ago to an instrumental score on YouTube from a film Jack didn’t recognise. The sweet melody didn’t seem to Owen’s usual taste, nor did the synopsis of the film when Jack looked it up online. Jack guessed it was something Katie had enjoyed.</p><p>After another hour of completing overdue paperwork, Jack was struggling to keep his eyes open. With a sigh, he laid down his pen and scrubbed a hand over his eyes. he wandered out of his office to find Owen still hard at work. Paper littered the flat surfaces, with some scrunched-up balls on the floor, surrounding the wastepaper bin and the area around Owen’s stool. Jack guessed the Weevil was back in the draw, but drying blood was still on the table, along with a used pair of disposable gloves, the blood on them slowly turning from dark red to brown.</p><p>“Aren’t you done yet?” Jack asked, not bothering to hide his yawn.</p><p>“I think I’ve nearly got something,” Owen muttered, still focused on the papers in front of him.</p><p>As much as Jack liked Owen's sudden determination, he'd much prefer it if he stuck to conventional hours. Or as conventual as you could get at Torchwood. “I'm sure you said that an hour ago.”</p><p>Owen looked up at the nearest screen, then swore when he saw the time. “Well, doesn't time fly when you're having fun!”</p><p>“I’m sure whatever you’ve got can wait a few hours.”</p><p>“I swear I’m nearly done,” Owen protested. “I’m sure it won’t take much longer.”</p><p>“Fine,” Jack sighed. “Look, I'm going to bed. Some of us have to get up for work in a few hours. There's some leftover pizza in the fridge if you get hungry. Don't forget to lock up properly when you’re done.”</p><p>God, he was really starting to sound old. Once upon a time, he could never have imagined he’d turn into one of those boring parents whose idea of fun was an early night without the kids. Then again, Melissa - or Alice as she was known these days - was around the same age as Owen. Not that he even got the chance to be a proper parent to his daughter. His baby girl was all grown up with a child of her own now.</p><p>He would never have expected to be telling a grown man who could complete a necropsy on all kind of alien species basic things like that either, but with Owen, he'd learnt that he'd rather be safe than sorry.</p><p>“And don't forget to clean up the mess you've made before you leave. I want that bay spotless when your done or I'll be dragging your bony ass back to clean the whole hub with a toothbrush when I wake up.”</p><p>Owen gave a disinterested grunt in reply as he continued to work.</p><p>“I mean it,” Jack warned, trying to be serious, now he couldn’t get the idea of a teenage Owen sneaking out all night to get pissed and fight aliens.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, Harkness. Whatever.” Owen picked up one of his discarded papers, scrunched it up and lobbed it over his shoulder in Jack’s direction.</p><p>Jack just laughed as it missed him by a mile. “You’ll be cleaning that up too.”</p><p>Owen gave him a two-fingered salute in reply.</p><p>“And do actually try to come in at some point tomorrow, preferably before lunchtime.”</p><p>“Oi! How come you let Tosh skive off until lunch, but not me?”</p><p>“Because she didn’t want to be my Second in Command. You need to co-sign Ianto’s paperwork before he can return to active duty.”</p><p>“I resign, effective immediately,” Owen said, still scribbling on his clipboard.</p><p>“Denied. You should know by now that Torchwood doesn't accept resignations between the hours of 00:00 and 06:00. And even if you weren’t my Second, as Torchwood’s Doctor, I'd still need you to complete Ianto’s full medical before I can even sign off the finished paperwork.”</p><p>“Fine,” he sighed.</p><p>“Good. Night, Owen,” Jack called cheerfully as he strode away, ignoring Owen’s lewd comments.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jack woke the next morning to an annoyingly insistent alarm that refused to stop no matter how much he cursed at it. He felt like he hadn’t slept at all, even if the clock told him it was just gone five to five. With a tired groan, he threw the PDA onto his bed and started getting dressed. He wouldn’t be getting any more sleep today, not with another Weevil on the loose.</p><p>Despite the noisy alarm, Jack was confident he could handle the call out by himself; there wasn’t much point dragging anyone else out of their beds for a single Weevil. It had triggered the alarms after it had been spotted by several CCTV cameras wandering down Trinity Street in the direction of Cardiff Market. The deserted Market was often a tempting place for Weevils to raid for leftovers. Jack mostly left them to it, but although it was quiet now, in an hour the stallholders would start to set up. If the lure of the smells coming from the fresh produce was strong enough to bring in the straggling tourists who hadn’t returned home, still desperately cramming in the last days of the summer holidays before the kids returned to school, it was definitely tempting for a Weevil. He knew he’d have to get a move on if he was to ensure the Cardiff’s Weevil population remained mostly a secret.</p><p>The lights of the Hub were still in Night Mode when Jack clambered up the ladder, so either Owen was asleep on the sofa or had finally gone home in the early hours of the morning. He grabbed his holster and gun from his desk and his coat from the stand in his office. He didn’t pass Owen as he rushed out the door and into the clear summer’s night, so assumed he had finally gone home in the early hours of the morning.</p><p>Jack didn't have time to marvel at the unusually clear sky or the stillness of the bay tonight as he tore through the silent streets in the SUV. He managed to get to the last known site of the Weevil in just under half the time it took Ianto to make the usual fifteen-minute journey to the Market. Parking down the side street next to the Old Library, Jack leapt out and started looking for the Weevil. The sun would be rising soon. Hopefully, this would encourage the Weevil to go back to the sewers. Jack just had to scout around to check it wouldn't get distracted by the greasy smells of the 24-hour MacDonald's at the top of the road. If it did decide to stay up top once the sun was up, it would be more of a problem. Weevils that were voluntary out in daylight could be dangerous. Well, more dangerous than usual. They were nocturnal animals, for the most part, preferring the damp dark sewers rather than the damp overcast Cardiff days. Ones that came to the surface in the day tended to either be vicious and hunting or rabid and defending. Jack still knew he could easily take one lone Weevil - he'd been chasing them long before his team was born.</p><p>Jack finally spotted the Weevil hiding in the shadows cast by the overflowing bins on Church Street. It was rather small, probably under five foot, so likely to be a juvenile. He hoped that Mummy or Daddy Weevil wasn’t nearby looking for it – Jack didn’t want to have to deal with a protective parent by himself. Luckily, the Weevil was unlikely to be too vicious, if the way it was huddling in the darkest corner was anything to go by. The young Weevil had probably become disorientated by the light of the growing dawn. He didn’t think he’d need to sedate the Weevil, just gently guide it back to its home in the sewers.</p><p>He looked around and found a manhole cover not too far from the.</p><p>“Okay, little one, let’s get you back home,” he said with a grunt as he lifted the cover. “Off you go then.”</p><p>He stood back and waited. The Weevil made no attempt to move. Instead, it seemed preoccupied with the smell coming from a rubbish sack, swatting at it with its small claws. The Weevil was closely studying each tiny gash it opened in the black plastic, sniffing and snuffling in a rather cute way. It was unusual to observe a young weevil; Owen would have been shitting himself if he had been here.</p><p>Jack smothered the laugh that was building in his chest. “I know it's smelly there, but you can't stay.”</p><p>He watched the Weevil for another minute, before deciding to make his move. Slowly, he crept towards the Weevil, hoping to herd it back towards the open manhole cover.</p><p>The Weevil suddenly turned. It sniffed the air and moaned low in its throat. It had scented him.</p><p>Shit.</p><p>Jack started to back away. He kept his eyes on the slowly approaching Weevil, whilst hoping he wouldn’t accidentally through the open manhole.</p><p>“There we go. Nice Weevil,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm and reassuring, but it was too late.</p><p>The Weevil lunged at him.</p>
<hr/><p>Jack got back to the Hub with just over three-quarters of an hour before the official start of the working day. The Weevil had gone back to the sewers, but not before it had taken a substantial swipe at Jack. The deep claw marks across his chest didn’t kill him, nor did he die of blood loss, but it was a close thing. Less than an inch lower and the worst of the damage would have exposed his intestines, rather than his rib cage. He’d staggered back to the SUV, cursing his slowly healing body. He didn’t have time to die today.</p><p>He’d binned his ruined clothes, thankful that the claws or blood hadn’t damaged his beloved greatcoat, and took a couple of high dosage pain killers to dull the pain coming from his still exposed chest cavity before he showered. His chest was slowly knitting back together – not as fast as it would have been if he’d died, but much faster than the average human. He covered it in gauze and wrapped a bandage around his torso to hide the dressing as much as possible. Jack tried to never cover one of his open wounds. Years ago he’d discovered that the newly grown skin had a tendency to bond with whatever was covering it, meaning he’d have to cut it out unless he wanted to go around with a tea towel that was molecularly bonded to his forearm. This time he didn’t have a choice if he wanted to keep his abilities a secret from the team.</p><p>Jack caught a glance of himself in the mirror as he left his bathroom. His skin was pale, almost grey, betraying his recent blood loss. He hoped no one would notice or at least put it down to the lack of sleep he’d been getting recently. There was also a dark scab over the small spit in his lip, where the claws of the Weevil had caught him.</p><p>He was just putting on his trousers when he heard the klaxon sound. Jack swore as he pulled on his undershirt and did up his fly. Of course, Ianto would be early. He grabbed a pale blue shirt and a pair of socks as he rushed to the ladder and up into his office.</p><p>Stumbling out in his haste, he bumped straight into Gwen.</p><p>“Sorry, sorry,” Gwen cried as he grabbed onto her arms to steady them both. “Thought you'd be up by now."</p><p>“Yeah, me too.” Jack was slightly out of breath from his rush. His chest burned as he tried to slow his breathing. He was glad it was only Gwen – bumping into Ianto in this state would be more than embarrassing.</p><p>“You alright, Love?” she asked, taking in his rumpled attire and split lip.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah. I'm fine,” Jack shrugged on his shirt and fastened his belt, hoping his face didn’t give away the amount of pain he was in. “Had a Weevil call out last night and another this morning. Only got an hour’s sleep if that.”</p><p>Luckily, Gwen hadn’t seemed to notice the dressings under his tee-shirt.</p><p>“So, Ianto's back today,” Gwen said as she fixed her hair, getting straight to the point as usual.</p><p>“Yeah, should be here soon.” Jack moved back into his office to collect his boots and watch, realising in the rush he had forgotten his braces. He debated whether he had enough time to grab them and put them on, but he didn't want Gwen to be the only one to greet Ianto when he came in. He was the Captain after all.</p><p>God knows what he was going to say to Ianto though.</p><p><em>'Welcome back, I'm sorry I shot your girlfriend,’</em> didn't seem to fit. Not that he was sorry he had shot the Cyberman - they were a danger to the Earth, as well as most of the known galaxy. What they couldn't convert they tried to kill. It was his duty to kill the Cyberman, no matter who they had been before they were converted.</p><p>It also seemed a little too late to be sorry. But he was sorry, not for what he had done, but for what had happened to Ianto.</p><p>
  <em>‘Sorry that you had to survive the fall of Canary Wharf, sorry that your girlfriend didn't manage to. Sorry that Torchwood One failed you, sorry that Torchwood Three failed you as well. Sorry that we didn't try to talk to you more. Sorry that you didn't feel you could talk to us.’</em>
</p><p>None of those words would change what happened in Ianto's mind. Whatever Ianto had done, Jack still would have killed his girlfriend. And he would again if he were given the choice. That was what made him the monster: the one who couldn't love. He couldn't afford to get attached.</p><p>“Where are the others?” Gwen asked, looking over at the deserted desks. Normally Toshiko would be already sat at hers by the time Gwen came in.</p><p>“Err, Toshiko's coming in at lunch. I gave her the morning off as she was out catching Weevils with me and Owen. He should’ve been in this morning, but I doubt he’ll show up until just before lunch. He was up half the night dissecting one of the Weevils we caught.”</p><p>“Oh. So, it's just us and Ianto this morning?”</p><p>Jack thought he could detect a suspicious undertone to her voice as if she thought that he’d deliberately sent the others away in order to be alone with Ianto.</p><p>He suddenly realised why Gwen was in uncharacteristically early. It had nothing to do with welcoming Ianto back. She was there to watch him, to make sure he behaved and didn't shoot Ianto on the spot. </p><p>God, was he really such an awful boss?</p><p>"Yeah,” he said and shrugged his shoulders to feign nonchalance, but immediately regretted it when he felt the gauze tug at his healing skin. He turned away from Gwen so she wouldn’t see the pain on his face.</p><p>“Could you do me a favour?” he asked but didn’t wait for Gwen to answer. “Go down to the Medical Bay and check Owen cleaned up after himself. I told him I'd drag his scrawny arse back in if he didn't."</p><p>Gwen laughed and bounded off down to Cold Storage to check Owen's area. Jack slumped down into his office chair to put his socks and boots on. He'd forgotten to shut down his computer properly last night, so it quickly started when he knocked the mouse. He pulled up the CCTV of the Plass and saw Ianto's car turning into the ally which lead to the car park. With a sigh, he pushed himself away from his desk and wandered up to the boardroom. It had the best view of the whole Hub and it also allowed him to remain detached from everything else.</p><p>He still didn't know what to say to Ianto, or to Gwen who had spotted him and was making her way up to him. He sighed and leant his forehead against the glass, his breath slightly fogging the cold surface. He needed to do better. But he was leaving soon. The Doctor would be coming, and he could finally leave the planet behind. He couldn't afford to get attached. But he also couldn’t afford another mistake like this.</p><p>"Owen's area's clear," Gwen said as she came into the boardroom to stand beside him.</p><p>"Good," Jack muttered. It was one less problem to deal with. He could see most of the Hub from up here and whilst it was nowhere near as tidy as he would have liked, it would have to do. He could see Owen's pizza boxes and beer cans stacked up on the coffee table alongside the black bin bag he had dumped there yesterday, intending to clean up before Ianto came back.</p><p>"Jack-" Gwen started to speak but the warning klaxon sounded as the cog door started to roll open. She leant against the glass wall and glanced at Jack as he folded his arms across his chest and tucked his hands under his arms.</p><p>The day was starting.</p><p>Ianto walked in slowly, glancing around cautiously as if he still expected the Hub to look the same as it had four weeks ago. Jack had cleaned up the carnage left behind that night and the following morning. As soon as the Cyber tech had been destroyed, he had sent the others home to bed and methodically scrubbed his home clean. It had stopped him from doing anything stupid that night that he'd later regret.</p><p>Ianto quickly spotted Jack and Gwen standing above him. Jack was suddenly struck by how young Ianto was - just 24 years old. He’d been 23 when Canary Wharf had fallen. This time the sharp suit couldn't hide his age like it usually did. The crisp black suit was slightly too big where he had presumably lost weight over his suspension. Now rather than making him look older, the white shirt and grey tie made him look like a little kid playing dress-up. Ianto stood still in the centre of the walkway just outside the cage doors, looking up at Jack with slightly fearful and confused eyes. His face was open, no longer hiding behind his mask.</p><p>And in that moment Jack forgave him.</p><p>Yes, Ianto had hidden himself, and Lisa, but now a new day was here. Jack couldn't change what had happened, couldn't change Ianto's actions any more than he could change his own. But he had to put it behind him. Ianto had made a choice to come back and if he wanted to make coffee and organise centuries worth of space junk in the archives then he could. Jack would take whatever he was given. They had both made mistakes that day, as well as the weeks and months leading up to the incident. Hopefully, they could both start again.</p><p>Jack closed his eyes and nodded his head slightly. All was forgiven. He was still angry at Ianto, but he could work through it. After all, he had worked alongside people he despised before. But he didn’t hate Ianto. He never had.</p><p>Jack himself had done many stupid things in his life out of love. Some turned out to be the best decisions of his life, others he’d rather not remember. Ianto had been given a choice, neither of which had pleasant outcomes. He’d chosen what he’d believed to be the best option. He’d chosen to save his girlfriend. And when he’d been given those same choices in the next hours, days, and months, he’d kept choosing love, even when all hope was gone. He’d chosen to save the woman he loved. It wasn’t that he was too blind and stupid to even consider the alternatives – he was just too young.</p><p>He knew they would probably never return to how they were; forgiving Ianto wouldn't change his opinion of him, but it would allow them to work together again. Even if Ianto would never consider being his friend again, Jack vowed to be there for him: to be his boss and his friend. He could be his friend and expect nothing in return except for his loyalty to Torchwood. It hurt, thinking what could have been, but there was the possibility that it had all been an act on Ianto’s part. But he knew that the art of pulling off a good con was when the conman is forced to give a part of himself away for the deception to be truly believable. He hoped at least part of Ianto friendship with him had been true.</p><p>Jack liked to think he wasn’t just their boss, but his friends. Torchwood dominated each of their lives and there was little time to find meaningful connections outside of their job. Suzie had been an outsider her entire life, Tosh had lost everything when UNIT came for her, and Owen isolated himself after Katie’s death. Gwen, with just twelve weeks at working for Torchwood, was already finding it difficult to keep her grip on the outside world. Torchwood existed sperate from normality, with long unpredictable hours, a glance into a darker reality, and secrets that couldn’t be told. He encouraged her to keep hold of that normality as much as she could – it was why he had hired her.</p><p>Ianto continued to look up at them, trying not to blink or flinch, although Jack noticed the slight movements in his frame. He was obviously still expecting something, but Jack didn't know what. He still didn't know what to say to him or how to act. Gwen turned her head to look at him, apparently also expecting something else from Jack. But whatever it was Ianto was expecting, he obviously got when Gwen turned away. With a small nod, Ianto turned and continued into the Hub, up the metal grating and past the workstations. Jack wondered if he was going to make coffee like he had most mornings. He wasn't too sure he deserved one, despite how much he had missed them.</p><p>“You'd never have shot him,” Gwen said in the silent room. She’d gone back to looking sympathetically at Ianto's retreating form but didn't move from her position slouched against the boardroom window. Jack couldn't bring himself to move either. Up here he was hidden, even if the glass walls put him on display. “Not really.”</p><p>“Wouldn't I?” Jack asked. At the time, anything could have happened. If Ianto had pushed back slightly harder, if his words dripping with venom had sunk slightly deeper, if, god forbidden, the Cyberman had managed to kill anyone else, any one of his team, who knows where the Welshman would be now? A bullet to the shoulder, or perhaps one to the head would not have been unreasonable in the heat of the moment. Or maybe he would have retconned Ianto, although it had seemed rather cruel to rob him of his memories of his lover, the loss of memory of what he had nearly unleashed on the world seemed too kind at the time.</p><p>“Would you have shot me if I'd gone to stand by him?”</p><p>Jack didn't want to answer. He continued to stare straight ahead and gave the answer that he knew Gwen had begun to loathe in her short time working with him. “But you didn't.”</p><p>“If I had, though.” It wasn’t even phrased as a question, she already knew the answer she’d be given, though why she continued to push was beyond him.</p><p>“But you didn't,” he repeated firmly, glancing over to Ianto who had picked up the bin bag and was clearing away the remnants of Owen's early morning snack and drinks. He knew the answer to Gwen's question, but also knew he couldn't ever tell her no matter how hard she pushed. He may be many things, but he wasn't a liar. An expert and evading and deflecting questions, yes, but no longer a liar. It didn't matter if no one believed his stories, he knew they were all true.</p><p>Gwen sighed and turned back to watch Ianto. The Cyberman roaming their base had been Gwen's first glance into the true horrors of Torchwood. The rose-tinted glasses that she wore with pride were starting to show hairline cracks. On her very first day she had told that they had lost what it means to be human. She hadn’t been wrong. Jack had hired her because of that attitude. She was hope. Hope in the future and hope in the present. She was the reminder that there were people out there, outside the bubble of Torchwood, who were safe because of the work they did every day. She was the idea that not every ending was sad. She didn't join because her lover had died at the hands of an alien or because she'd been offered the job to escape a cell. She was hope. Pure and simple hope.</p><p>But even Gwen was starting to become twisted by the claws of Torchwood. She’d been able to see beyond Torchwood, just like Jack had hoped. But she'd been so focused on the outside world, clinging to it just as Jack had asked her to, that she hadn't noticed the hidden human cost of working at Torchwood. It hadn’t been her fault – the blame laid solely on Jack’s shoulders – but she felt it should have been. He knew that she felt responsible for not noticing Ianto’s pain, just as he did. But Gwen had been the one to remind them that they often forgot the human cost and tragedy behind each case. Ianto had paid the price for being the forgotten survivor of Torchwood One. Gwen’s lack of action upon Ianto’s plight was slowly corrupting her view of her new world.</p><p>Perhaps they all should have realised after Suzie’s murders had been uncovered that they themselves were human, as were their colleagues and friends. But instead, they’d each dismissed Suzie as an outlier.</p><p><em>‘It won’t happen to me,’</em> those thoughts whispered. <em>‘I’m not like that’.</em></p><p>But Jack should have known better. He’d witnessed far too many good Torchwood Operatives become lost to the darkest depths of Torchwood. Suzie had been gripped by the pursuit of knowledge, heightened by an alien artefact. Ianto had found it easier to just swim down in order to save his lover. They had missed another of their own, suffering in silence as they clung to the normalcy of the unnatural Torchwood. Jack had not managed to save either from their own destruction.</p><p>But while Suzie was now lost forever to the darkness, Ianto had a chance.</p><p>Apparently, Gwen was thinking along the same lines.</p><p>“Will he stay?” she asked with a slight nod of her head towards the Welshman.</p><p>Once again, that wasn't a question Jack could answer, but for an entirely different reason. He shrugged his head slightly to the side and raised his eyebrows. It was all down to Ianto now. It was his choice.</p><p>“All that deception because he couldn't live without her,” she sighed, then turned to Jack to stare hesitantly at him. “So, have you ever loved anyone that much?”</p><p>Jack glanced at her out the corner of his eyes before looking back at Ianto. He wasn't even going to think about that, not for fear of the answer, but in fear that he might not be able to name all the people he had once loved. So many scattered across time now lost to him. There were friends, lovers, families, children, and grandchildren. But he also had been willing to die and had died for so many others. The acquaintances, the colleagues, and those he lost before they could be anything more. There were the people he lost before he was ready, the people he clung to unwilling to let them go, and the people he should have let go sooner than he did. He remembered the moments when everything seemed perfect, the days in which he felt on top of the world, and the moments which still hurt even through the passing of time, the weeks, and months when everything was wrong. He had loved them all, and always would.</p><p>But he wasn’t a 21st-century human, barely in his second decade of life. He was a man flung backwards in time, over three thousand years before his birth, and now somehow immortal. He’d lived for over one hundred and seventy years, most of it spent fighting in a time that was not his own.</p><p>Even before the fall of Torchwood One, he’d known the dangers of the Cybermen. He’d fought in the Cyber Wars as a Time Agent and barely survived. He’d witnessed the aftermath of their attacks, whole planets ravished by their army leaving nothing but a handful of survivors, and later helped to rebuild human colonies on the deserted worlds. He knew there was no way to save anyone once the process had started. As soon as that chest plates were sealed or that implant was put in the brain, it was all over. No matter how much he loved someone, he could never try to save them. They were dead. The only thing he could do was release them. The only thing he could do would be to kill them.</p><p>But had he ever loved someone so much that he’d endanger the entire world for them? Had he ever tried to save someone, knowing they couldn’t be saved? Had he ever refused to let someone go?</p><p>Yes.</p><p>A thousand times over.</p><p>But he couldn’t tell Gwen that. Instead, he continued to study Ianto. His movements no longer had the graceful flow that he had come to enjoy watching but were stiff as if he were still in pain. Owen may have provisionally cleared him to work, but Jack made a mental note to ask Ianto about the pain he was in. After all, he had been thrown across the hub and probably broken his neck and died only four weeks prior, not that Owen or Ianto knew that little detail. Jack hugged himself a little tighter and repressed a shudder as he remembered the fear and pain of that night.</p><p>“When she had hold of you, I thought, just for a moment, I thought maybe you could die after all,” Gwen said softly, yet her voice was no longer hesitant but instead full of curiosity.</p><p>Jack stood frozen for a second before he felt manic laughter rising in his throat. Or perhaps it was a sob. He quickly swallowed it back down.</p><p>“Want to know a secret?” he asked as he finally turned to her to see her looking up at him, eyes wide as her mouth opened slightly before closing again, apparently unsure if she wanted to know another of Jack's secrets. Her inquisitive streak might be a mile wide, and Jack loved her for it, but she already knew his secrets were dangerous. Yet she didn't say no, so he continued.</p><p>"So did I," he said with a slight twitch of his lips. Gwen blinked in thinly vailed shock. "And just for a second there, I felt so alive."</p><p>God, it hurt to admit, but he couldn't deny it. The fear of the Cyberman, not knowing whether he would survive or not. Just knowing he had to protect his team, to buy them time to get away, to survive. If it managed to delete one of them, they wouldn’t come back. Even a part functioning Cyberman with depleted power reserves would have been enough to destroy most of the planet. But he could stop it, keep it distracted, so long as he kept reviving.</p><p>And there it was – the one thing that unites almost every creature in creation: the fear of death. The fear that pushed humans to the top of the food chain on Earth, then later drives them out among the stars. The fear to find something – anything – in the eternal darkness that surrounds all life. But after dying over a thousand deaths, the fear had slowly slipped away. How could a man who had experienced his own death so many times still fear it? Jack feared the pain of coming back, feared what would happen if anyone else found out, feared that he would outlive everything in the universe, but he rarely feared his own death after over a thousand deaths and subsequent resurrections. It feels as if it’s a part of humanity that he’s lost and further separates him from those around him. Even the Cybermen have more humanity in that regard – unable to face their own deaths, whatever the cost.</p><p>But in that moment, that nanosecond before the metal hand clamped down on his shoulder, Jack feared death, just like any other human. He wasn’t simply existing anymore, but truly alive. He had to stay alive, he had to not die, he had to continue fighting, otherwise, they were alone. If there was one thing Jack had learned in all those years of waiting, it was that the Doctor didn’t always come.</p><p>Yet a tiny traitorous part of his mind felt relief for that split second, too. If he died and stayed dead, he wouldn't have to worry, didn't have to fear. He would be free of all this. None of it would matter anymore. Let someone else save the day for once. He wasn't a hero and he'd never been a hero. It was true that once he had been a coward, and in some respects, he still was, but the choices he was forced to make since the Game Station didn't make him a hero. It made him a monster. Ianto had been right that night. What else could he have become after over a century of life? His humanity was running out.</p><p>He still wished he could be that coward - he'd have been much better off. But in those moments, right before he died, was the freest Jack felt during his long life. His heart pumping, adrenalin flowing, and the knowledge that he could do no more. In that tiny moment, he was free.</p><p>It never lasted though. He was the man who could die and die again. His friends, however, didn’t share the same curse. If he died forever, there’d be no one there to save them from the oncoming darkness. They’d die. They’d be trapped in the eternal darkness, surrounded by fear on all sides yet utterly alone. He wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy, let alone his friends.</p><p>He had to come back. He had to protect them. There was no one else.</p>
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